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User blog:Brywarrior/Brywarrior's Ultimate Writing Guide
Introduction Hey, everyone! Since this is a blog post, you can obviously tell that I'm Brywarrior, but you can call me "Bry." This blog is inspired greatly by CaT and his content creating blogs, but in not any way meant to outdo him or anything like that. This is just going to be some tips and tricks based on my experience as a Fanfiction writer, a student, and an authorI'm currently in the process of writing a book, but I'm not published yet.. First off, I'm no expert. I have had my fair share of accomplishments, but I've also had troubles. This is merely advice based on things that I've been told I do well, things I have improved on over the years, things I still need to improve on, and things that I've noticed in others, that I may or may not see in my writing as well. So, without further adieu, let the guide begin! Fist and Foremost Like anything, there are some things you need to grasp first before you begin your fiction. The first and hardest to swallow is this: no one cares. This is a really rude way to word it, but you need to understand that unless you've made relationships with users and/or promoted your fiction for a while no one is going to notice, and if they do they won't give it much thought. This is not to discourage you. You will get recognition if your content is good, but it'll take time. You can't just write a few chapters or episodes and hope that people will notice and ask for more. You have to act like you have an audience, and keep pushing out content so that, when someone does finally read it, they have a lot to read. My first seriesBen 10: Ultimate Heroes. If you can find the episodes, I suggest not reading them. Very bad... was bad. I could write. As in, I had the ability, but I was just awful. The plot made no sense, the main character was literally written as a Mary Suehttp://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue, and every character had the same speech patterns, so you really had to look at who was talking to understand. Just... no... I understand now that it was bad, and you will understand the same about your first work once you've been doing this for a while.At the time, though, I was putting out episodes like three times a week and getting no attention, which was infuriating. I spent time on that and it was not getting what I thought it deserved. I'm getting a little sidetracked, but the point is that you're likely not as good as you think you are, but keep trying and you'll eventually get what you deserve. Plot The plot for your series is just as important as any element of the fiction. The plot is the driving force that takes characters to their destinies and blah blah blah. You have to think this through. Quite a bit. I failed to do this when I started, and it made the series feel empty. I couldn't understand that you can't just write ten filler episodes and then just drop the Season Finale plot right before the finale itself. You have to build the story. The best thing that I've found is to think about where you want the season to end. Then, think about how to logically progress the story from your hero's first day to their nearly last. Do what Young Justice writers did, and build the Season's main enemy from episode two, but only have them appear like once every couple episodes. They took seemingly unconnected events and made them connect with the villains almost coming out on top at the end of the first season. It makes you want to watch or read the next part to see what happens and if the conflict gets resolved. Now, you don't have to be as detailed as they were. You can start small. For one example, I built an arc for a villain that started prior to the seriesBryce Bowman: Origins. My best series, and the only one I really care about.. The villain appeared very briefly in one episode of the second season, his minions appeared all through that season and the next building up to a final battle between all the heroes of the past three seasons and all the villains under this one villain's control. This was the first time I had really put effort into a story arc, and it worked out pretty well. I was able to use that arc to build the plot for the next season, which has since been critically acclaimed!I mean, CaT said it was good, so idk. But enough about me. When you build a long-standing story arc, people get interested. It's not easy, but it's always worth it. A good plot is a vital piece of any good story. Characters The characters are just as essential as the plot, if not more. The biggest problem writers have with creating characters for a borrowed universe is making them real. I'm not saying everything about them has to be realistic, but there are certain things that are required to make the character feel real. First, you want to avoid a Mary Sue. A Mary Sue is a character that is essentially perfect. They have little or no flaws, they are always right in their decisions, everyone loves them, or those who don't are seen as bad people. Obviously, the villain shouldn't like them, but that's different. For more information, see Footnote #3. These can be hard to avoid, especially for new writers, because you want your main character to be liked. You want them to be a role model, but there's an issue. It's impossible to be perfect, so having a perfect role model isn't good because you can't be like them. In addition to just being boring. Mary Sues serve no good purpose to the story, and should be completely cut from it. There are many tests online that help you determine whether or not your character is a Mary Sue. My personal favorite - http://www.gotoquiz.com/results/is_your_character_a_mary_sue_2 You want to also avoid the Clone. A Clone character is a near or exact copy of the main character of the Canon material, or from some other media. Footnotes Category:Blog posts